War is never the answer

War war is stupid. And people are stupid.

And love means nothing. In some strange quarters.

* CULTURE Club (80s hit song)

What exactly does war achieve ? How is bombing a city to smithereens helping a country become better/richer/developed ? What could be the purpose of taking thousands of innocent lives and relentlessly pounding a city or country into submission?

200 missiles launched on city screams one newspaper headline while the next one gloats about how those that were pounded have managed to successfully repel the onslaught.

As I have my breakfast, the TV channel displays great technical skill by showing an anti-aircraft missile launcher, framed in three different hues, as it spews its munition into the smoke filled skies. It is not enough that the media displays a perverse and insatiable appetite for displaying war imagery. Now these have to be beautified to make it visually appealing to its apathetic viewers.

A constant live stream on another channel is breaking news about a top military leader being killed in an airstrike. The ticker across the visuals proclaims that the country has already named his successor. Meanwhile in another part of the world, the Greatest Nation in the World is busy supplying arms to its ally so that a war which is nearly 3 years old, can continue indefinitely and people continue to get trapped like flies caught in a web and the destruction continues, ad infinitum.

What is wrong with this world today ?

On the one hand, advancement in technology has enhanced life expectancy and the world has made undeniable strides in healthcare. Almost all major diseases that used to earlier cause widespread death have now been eradicated. Yet the world continues to find and fund, newer, deadlier means of warfare so that the “enemy” is crushed and the world becomes a better place. This type of thinking is sheer madness. Taking a stance that my God is better than yours and might is right, doesn’t make the world any better. Fighting for a strip of land for 50 years and more, has no beneficial consequences to the citizens who are unwittingly caught in the crossfire.

War creates untold chaos and misery for both the aggressor and the defending side. It is a zero sum game where both parties suffer and lose. Casualties on both sides are the innocent civilians and bystanders who are pulverised into submission.

An eye for an eye makes the world go blind, cautioned the Mahatma more than half a century ago. Due to his steadfast abhorrence to violence, India achieved independence from the British, in a largely peaceful manner, though the resultant partition brought along its own share of grief and tragedy.

In ancient times, Emperor Ashok also realised the futility of war after his tryst at Kalinga. The scale of destruction and death was so great that he underwent a seismic change in personality. His bloodlust and thirst for carnage was pierced by seeing the widespread annihilation of his fellowmen. Never again, he swore and hence the battle of Kalinga transformed him from a blood thirsty emperor into an apostle of peace who saw through the illusion of victory and war for what it really was — a chimera.

Nothing substantial or beneficial to mankind has ever been achieved through violent means. The Mughal invasions, the Crusades, The World wars, wars in Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, Gaza, Ukraine, the list is endless. The perpetrators of war project their Righteousness and Just cause on its people and the world at large who already know this to be the BIG LIE. War can never be the answer. Killing in the name of country or religion has not solved any problems, ever.

The time has come for a war-weary world to take a stand against war and bloodshed. Countries must refuse to support war for any reason, apart from being attacked. The nations who carry economic and political heft must stop supplying arms that only serve to pulverize and punish the innocent.

Open your eyes and see War for what it is, an internecine dance of death where there are no victors and widespread loss of lives is the only result. Only with a concerted and conscious effort by people across the world to stop war and end suffering will it really end. This is possible, when citizens of the world refuse to participate in the shenanigans that politicians indulge in and aver that PEACE is the only answer to lasting development and upliftment of nations. Let us bury the old tropes of war created out of eons of fear mongering by the ruling classes, whose only interest was to oppress its citizenry.

Together a couple of persons who want peace can come together and form an alliance with an ever-increasing circle of friends eschewing war and its attendant after-effects. This can then be expanded from a building, to an area to a city, then more cities and countries. The ever expanding awareness of peace lovers can then snowball into a world wide revolution when politicians across the spectrum are forced to acknowledge that Peace is the only way forward for a sustainable and foreseeable future.